1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to internet searching and more particularly to a search system that utilizes a user purchase history as context for a search.
2. Related Art
Conventional search systems for searching the Internet typically involve a user providing search terms to the search system and the search system using those search terms to search a web index for web pages to return to the user as search results. The search system may create the web index using “spider” software programs that fetch a first set of web pages, follow a first set of links on the first set of web pages to fetch a second set of web pages that the first set of links point to, follow a second set of links on the second set of web pages to fetch a third set of web pages that the second set of links point to, and so on, in order to index the web such that the web index may include billions of web pages stored on many different devices. In response to receiving search terms from a user, the search system then searches the web index to find the web pages that includes the search terms, and then narrows those web pages into search results using a number of qualifiers such as, for example, a number of times the search terms are included on the web page, whether the search terms are included in the title of the web page, whether the search terms are included in the universal resource locator (URL) for the web page, whether the web page includes synonyms for the search terms, whether the web page is part of what is deemed a ‘quality’ website, how many web sites link to that web page, and/or a variety of other qualifiers known in the art.
Thus, conventional search systems are limited to using the search terms provided by the user in order to determine the web pages that will be returned as search results.
Thus, there is a need for an improved search system.